So SIFF is entering its second exhilarating/exhausting week today, and the counterprogrammers—who were cowering a bit on opening weekend—are finally coming out to play.

Seattle True Independent Film Festival (STIFF) kicks off today with an impressively packed lineup of underground/low-budget/local/microcinema offerings. Andrew Wright previews the festival here. In addition to his worthy picks, I also recommend you check out Grand Luncheonette, a short by Peter Sillen (who co-directed the great Benjamin Smoke with Jem Cohen) about the closing of a Times Square lunch counter. It looks like it should be 16 mm, or at least a film-to-video transfer. Dansk Stil is a movie about the Danish hiphop scene, which makes for a nice counter-programming choice given that SIFF is doing a Danish spotlight. Charles Mudede says he’s heard good things about Wally. There are also lots and lots of movies about zombies and ninjas and clowns.

Grand Illusion, which sells general tickets for a sweet $7.50, is in the second week of a Fritz Lang series—either an ambitious or a completely foolhardy alternative to SIFF’s archival presentations. Go, now, watch M. Next week, they’re retreating to more traditional microcinema territory with a movie called Psychopathia Sexualis (it’s a dramatization of the Krafft-Ebbing text).

Northwest Film Forum embraced the SIFF behemoth last week, with a pretty damn good SIFF program entitled “Alternate Cinema” (so far, a Darkness Swallowed is my favorite experimental film of the year). This week, they’re breaking away from SIFF and doing something pretty smart: music festival documentaries. Who knew such a genre existed? It should appeal to people who aren’t so into SIFF’s (I hate to say it) disappointing music-oriented programming. The T.A.M.I. Show starts tonight at 7 and 9; Festival starts Monday (Megan Seling’s capsule review is here). Next week: Coachella.